Gazmend Kapllani
Gazmend Kapllani
1. When were you happiest?
Now, I guess.
2. What is your principal defect?
It’s up to the others to say.
3. What makes you depressed?
Talking too much – and I do it often.
4. What do you most dislike about your appearance?
I like everything about my appearance, because I believe God created me in His Image. I am an atheist, by the way …
5. What is your favourite word?
Borders
6. What is your most unappealing habit?
Eating my nails
7. What is your favourite smell?
French Onion Soup. It brings to my mind the image of my girlfriend.
8. What is your guiltiest pleasure?
There are plenty of them, I can’t choose just one.
9. Who are your favourite writers?
E.E. Cummings, Jacque Prever, Miguel de Cervantes, Jaroslav Hašek, Ryszard Kapuściński, Milan Kundera etc.
10. What is the worst job you've done?
Grinding argil [potter’s clay] in Albania, in a Chinese mill. I would be spitting dust at the end of the day. It was a sort of punishment from the Communist Party because of the “bad biography” of my father. My grandfather had been once rich…
11. When did you last cry, and why?
November 2008 in Harlem, New York, the night of Obama’s victory. It was the first time I have cried for political reasons...
12. What do you most value in you friends?
Their generosity.
13. What gift would you most like to possess?
A magic ticket which will permit me to travel everywhere…
14. What was your most embarrassing moment?
Five years ago. It was Sunday, 6 o’clock in the morning when two Greek policemen in plain clothes came to my house, almost like thieves and tried to deport me from Greece as they viewed me as dangerous to national security…
15. What is your most treasured possession?
My External Hard Disk USB. I’ve saved everything there…
16. What is the worst thing anyone's said to you?
Honestly, I don’t remember. Usually people are kind to me. Even those two Greek policemen…
17. If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Everything of course, I don’t like repetitions.
18. If you could go back in time, where would you go?
To the Middle Ages: there was a moment then when smugglers of forbidden books from the Church used to exist. I would have liked to be a book smuggler.
19. What is your greatest fear?
To become miserable and a tightwad.
20. What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Reality goes always beyond imagination. Just open your mind and your eyes.
